Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada lieutenant governor says attacks on Romney ‘absurd’

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki

Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki called the flap over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s statements about “binders full of women,” “absurd attacks” driven by supporters of President Barack Obama.

Krolicki, a top Romney supporter in Nevada, also said in a conference call with reporters that the president only referred in a general way to “terror” immediately after the attacks in Libya, and for weeks administration officials tried to label them the outgrowth of a spontaneous protest.

After Tuesday night’s debate, Obama supporters on social media sites were making great hay out of Romney’s comments about women.

“The only reason that phrase is on anyone’s mind is that supporters of Barack Obama are trying to make an issue out of something,” Krolicki said. Romney was referring to a “binder full of resumes,” Krolicki said.

He said the words were being “manipulated to mean something different...It’s just a nonstarter.”

He pointed to Romney’s record as governor of Massachusettes, where half of his cabinet were women.

During the town hall debate in Long Island, New York, on Tuesday night, the candidates were asked about equal pay for women.

Romney pointed to his record as governor of Massachusetts. Initially when he became governor, all the applicants for senior-level jobs were men.

“And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet,” Romney said. “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women.

“I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.”

Krolicki, on the conference call with reporters, acknowledged a more aggressive Obama than in the first debate, but said the president lacked specifics and didn’t answer questions.

“He came out much more aggressively, throwing elbows,” Krolicki said. But in a shot at moderator Candy Crowley, he said, “The shot clock wasn’t always monitored.”

He said Obama didn’t address what has happened with the economy and deficit and what will happen in the next four years. “It’s frustrating not to hear the answers yet again,” Krolicki said.

He also said Obama was wrong to say he immediately labeled the attack in Libya an act of terrorism.

“For the president to really assert and challenge, and have some help from the moderator, that he announced the day after the terrorist attack...that he labeled it an act of terrorism — that’s absolutely not what the record says,” Krolicki said. “He mentioned the word terror in a general way.” But for weeks, Obama officials “still wanted to label it a YouTube phenomenon, a spontaneous attack.”

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